All posts by UW ROV

Today was the first of three competition days at the MATE international ROV competition in Orlando, Florida. The Casus team spent the day attending competition events, unpacking the ROV, preparing for a safety inspection, and setting up a display for engineering judges. The ROV passed the safety inspection, but would not respond when it was powered up. The controls team identified the problem — a faulty power conversion unit, likely damaged during the shipping process. As of 10:30 PM, the Casus team is working in a hotel room, equipped with a limited set of tools, but with confidence in their ability to fix the problem.

As the competition deadline draws near, we are making final changes to the as-of-yet unnamed ROV. Mission tooling is being attached. The pressure hull is being improved on. Most of our work involves the technicalities presented by the international competition. To travel to Florida and compete, the team will need to write a technical report, create a display poster, and practice a confident vehicle presentation. Travel has to be booked, and fast: our team has a great machine and the motivation to do well at the competition, but we haven’t raised the funds necessary to pay for our shipping, flight, and hotel room expenses in Florida. If you’re anything like me, it might be easier to donate money designated toward ROV parts than trip expenses for some college students. So, I’d like to give you a few reasons the trip is important:

Publicity. The UW ROV team can make its name known at the international venue, attracting support from a larger audience.

Practice. We plan on winning Seattle’s competition next year, and the experience gained at the Florida venue would pave the way for our success.

We want to help you. The UW ROV team isn’t just in this for the show. We want to build an ROV for use by researchers in the Puget Sound, and this competition is a stepping stone for that goal.

Our machine deserves the chance. We’re confident in our ability to make a great run at the competition, and take a shot for the first place trophy.

We’re really cool. Some of us spend many hours each week working on this project, and although we don’t do this for the glory, it would be rewarding to see our hard work paid off in a competition against our peers.

Sound good? I think so, too. Head over to http://www.uwrov.com/about-us/ to help us out. Your contribution will be put to good use. We’d like to thank you ahead of time for your support, and recognize that none our work is possible without our sponsors. UW ROV: Getting the job done since 2011.